September 27, 2012

Finishing up the Harvest

I think I'm coming to the end of the harvest season. The tomatoes are slowing down (although they barely got up to speed in the first place), and I've pulled out the squashes, bringing in these tiny pumpkins.
I've been digging potatoes for more than a month now. There are still several plants going strong in the p-patch, so I hope to double this:
There's a little basil in the garden that we're eating up. There are some carrots that will stay out there until we need them. Otherwise, it's all pretty much done. The blueberry shrubs are turning red, the pear tree is shedding leaves.

Oh, speaking of pears, this is what the pear tree did this year:
I did much better this year about getting them off the tree in time. Pears don't ripen the way we want them to on the tree; they have to be picked not-quite-ripe then chilled for a spell, and then they'll ripen nicely. Last year, lots of them were mushy and were all turned into pear sauce. This year: perfect (although I still made pear sauce.

I've been harvesting grapes from the arbor out front for a while now. This was the haul from earlier this week:
I've loaded up the dehydrator (raisins!) and cooked some down into something sort of like a cobbler filling (start making grape juice but stop before reaching the grape-squishing stage, then add sugar). This is in addition to the two quarts of grape juice in the freezer and the three quarts of grape-plum cobbler filling.